title: An electromyographic analysis of the hip abductor muscles during a standing work task.
abstract: Research data strongly suggest that osteoarthritis of the hip occurs statistically more often on the right side. A possible contributing factor to this right-sided bias in frequency may be that the articular cartilage on the right hip is subjected to relatively higher muscular-based forces throughout a lifetime. As an initial attempt to study this possibility, this research examined healthy persons to determine the existence of a "dominant" hip similar to that expressed for handedness. Electromyographic (EMG) analysis was used to compare the electrical activity between the right and left hip abductor muscles during a standardized standing work task using 40 right-handed and 40 left-handed healthy subjects. Analysis of the data showed that the hip muscle on the side of the subject's handedness produced higher normalized EMG activity than did the opposite hip; however, the differences were not all statistically significant. The trend of this data set, however, warrants further research into a possible association between hip dominance, asymmetrical muscle use, and the development of hip osteoarthritis.
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Neumann
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Sobush
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Paschke
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Cook
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004576:Electromyography; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D009132:Muscles / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015207:Osteoarthritis, Hip / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis